Pratiques agricoles et propriétés agro-écologiques des prairies dans un processus d’intensification écologique : le cas de l’élevage bovin dans le Vercors

National audienceL'élevage bovin pour la production laitière est la composante agricole majeure sur le territoire des Quatre Montagnes dans le massif du Vercors. Sur ce territoire, un enjeu fort soulevé par une grande partie des agriculteurs concerne la question de l'autonomie fourragère. Cet aspect de la production est d'autant plus central qu'il est fortement dépendant des caractéristiques des prairies qui permettent d'assurer la production de fourrage en dépit d'aléas de plus en plus contraignants (sécheresses, dégâts de campagnols…). Comprendre comment maintenir un niveau de production suffisant en s'appuyant sur les propriétés écosystémiques des prairies relève du contexte de l'intensification écologique en abordant les relations entre l'organisation des systèmes d'élevage (usages à l'échelle des parcelles, diversité des types de parcelles au sein des exploitations, distribution au sein du paysage) et les valeurs d'usage et services écosystémiques fournis par les prairies. Au sein du projet multi-sites ANR-SYSTERRA MOUVE (Les interactions Elevage et Territoire dans la mise en mouvement de l’intensification écologique), le territoire des Quatre Montagnes constitue l'un des terrains d'approfondissement pour analyser comment l'évolution des pratiques dans le sens de l'intensification écologique peut permettre d'augmenter le niveau des services écologiques et d'améliorer les capacités d'adaptation des élevages. En nous appuyant sur une typologie préétablie des prairies, basée le type d'usage (fauche, pâturage) et la composition simplifiée de la végétation nous avons mesuré un large panel de propriétés écosystémiques sur un échantillon de 50 parcelles représentant la diversité des types d'usage sur le territoire. Les propriétés mesurée couvrent notamment la structure spécifique (diversité, hétérogénéité) et fonctionnelle des communautés (traits foliaires, structuraux, phénologiques), les caractéristiques agronomiques (teneur en N, C, P…) et écologique (biomasse et diversité microbienne) du sol et du fourrage (production, qualité), autant de proxys pour les grands types de services reconnus : (i) services intrants, (ii) services de production fourragère et (iii) services en lien avec la valeur écologique des prairies. Les premiers résultats révèlent le rôle prépondérant de deux facteurs liés aux usages pour les propriétés agro-écologiques des prairies : la date de première fauche ou pâturage et le caractère temporaire ou permanent des prairies (date du dernier retournement). Les prairies temporaires offrent un bon niveau de services intrant (fertilité, matière organique) et de production et qualité fourragère mais une faible valeur écologique (faible diversité). Cette distinction sur la base des propriétés agro-écologiques est d'autant plus intéressante que les entretiens auprès des éleveurs ont souligné l'importance de la place des prairies temporaires comme une des clés pour l'autonomie fourragère. Ces prairies productives étant également les plus sensibles aux aléas et offrant une moindre souplesse d'utilisation. A terme, notre objectif est d'identifier les compromis, synergies et antagonismes entre les différents types de services rendus (agronomiques, écologiques) en fonction de différents scénarios d'intensification écologique à l'échelle du territoire

YeastMine--an integrated data warehouse for Saccharomyces cerevisiae data as a multipurpose tool-kit.

The Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD; http://www.yeastgenome.org/) provides high-quality curated genomic, genetic, and molecular information on the genes and their products of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To accommodate the increasingly complex, diverse needs of researchers for searching and comparing data, SGD has implemented InterMine (http://www.InterMine.org), an open source data warehouse system with a sophisticated querying interface, to create YeastMine (http://yeastmine.yeastgenome.org). YeastMine is a multifaceted search and retrieval environment that provides access to diverse data types. Searches can be initiated with a list of genes, a list of Gene Ontology terms, or lists of many other data types. The results from queries can be combined for further analysis and saved or downloaded in customizable file formats. Queries themselves can be customized by modifying predefined templates or by creating a new template to access a combination of specific data types. YeastMine offers multiple scenarios in which it can be used such as a powerful search interface, a discovery tool, a curation aid and also a complex database presentation format. DATABASE URL: http://yeastmine.yeastgenome.org

Farmer perceptions and responses to soil degradation in Swaziland

Soil degradation is globally concerning due to its adverse effects on the environment and agricultural production. Much of Swaziland is at risk from degradation. This paper assesses farmer perceptions and responses to soil degradation in 2002 and 2014, focusing on two land uses that underpin rural livelihoods: arable land and rangeland areas. It uses repeat household surveys and semi-structured interviews, in two case study chiefdoms in the country’s middleveld (KaBhudla and Engcayini) in the first longitudinal study of its kind. We find that observations of land degradation are perceived mainly through changes in land productivity, with chemical degradation occurring predominantly on arable land and physical degradation and erosion mainly in rangeland areas. Changes in rainfall are particularly important in determining responses. While perceptions of the causes and impacts of degradation largely concur with the scientific literature, responses were constrained by poor land availability, shorter and more unpredictable cropping seasons because of changing rains and low awareness, access to or knowledge of agricultural inputs. We suggest that sustainable arable land management can be enhanced through improved access to alternative sources of water, use of management practices that retain soil and moisture and greater access to agricultural inputs and capacity building to ensure their appropriate use. We suggest collaborative management for settlement planning that integrates soil conservation and livestock management strategies such as controlled stocking levels and rotational grazing could improve land quality in rangeland areas. Together, these approaches can help land users to better manage change

Insights into olfactory ensheathing cell development from a laser-microdissection and transcriptome-profiling approach.

Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) are neural crest-derived glia that ensheath bundles of olfactory axons from their peripheral origins in the olfactory epithelium to their central targets in the olfactory bulb. We took an unbiased laser microdissection and differential RNA-seq approach, validated by in situ hybridization, to identify candidate molecular mechanisms underlying mouse OEC development and differences with the neural crest-derived Schwann cells developing on other peripheral nerves. We identified 25 novel markers for developing OECs in the olfactory mucosa and/or the olfactory nerve layer surrounding the olfactory bulb, of which 15 were OEC-specific (that is, not expressed by Schwann cells). One pan-OEC-specific gene, Ptprz1, encodes a receptor-like tyrosine phosphatase that blocks oligodendrocyte differentiation. Mutant analysis suggests Ptprz1 may also act as a brake on OEC differentiation, and that its loss disrupts olfactory axon targeting. Overall, our results provide new insights into OEC development and the diversification of neural crest-derived glia.Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Cambridge Philosophical Societ

The modENCODE Data Coordination Center: lessons in harvesting comprehensive experimental details.

The model organism Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (modENCODE) project is a National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) initiative designed to characterize the genomes of Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans. A Data Coordination Center (DCC) was created to collect, store and catalog modENCODE data. An effective DCC must gather, organize and provide all primary, interpreted and analyzed data, and ensure the community is supplied with the knowledge of the experimental conditions, protocols and verification checks used to generate each primary data set. We present here the design principles of the modENCODE DCC, and describe the ramifications of collecting thorough and deep metadata for describing experiments, including the use of a wiki for capturing protocol and reagent information, and the BIR-TAB specification for linking biological samples to experimental results. modENCODE data can be found at http://www.modencode.org

Reliable, resilient and sustainable urban drainage systems: an analysis of robustness under deep uncertainty (article)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Chemical Society via the DOI in this record.The dataset associated with this article is available in ORE at: https://doi.org/10.24378/exe.563Reliability, resilience and sustainability are key goals of any urban drainage system. However, only a few studies have recently focused on measuring, operationalizing and comparing such concepts in a world of deep uncertainty. In this study, these key concepts are defined and quantified for a number of gray, green and hybrid strategies, aimed at improving the capacity issues of an existing integrated urban wastewater system. These interventions are investigated by means of a regret-based approach, which evaluates the robustness (that is the ability to perform well under deep uncertainty conditions) of each strategy in terms of the three qualities through integration of multiple objectives (i.e. sewer flooding, river water quality, combined sewer overflows, river flooding, greenhouse gas emissions, cost and acceptability) across four different future scenarios. The results indicate that strategies found to be robust in terms of sustainability were typically also robust for resilience and reliability across future scenarios. However, strategies found to be robust in terms of their resilience and, in particular, for reliability did not guarantee robustness for sustainability. Conventional gray infrastructure strategies were found to lack robustness in terms of sustainability due to their unbalanced economic, environmental and social performance. Such limitations were overcome, however, by implementing hybrid solutions that combine green retrofits and gray rehabilitation solutions.This study was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council through STREAM (EP/G037094/1) with Northumbrian Water Limited, BRIM (EP/N010329/1) and the final author’s fellowship Safe & SuRe (EP/K006924/1)

modMine: flexible access to modENCODE data.

In an effort to comprehensively characterize the functional elements within the genomes of the important model organisms Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans, the NHGRI model organism Encyclopaedia of DNA Elements (modENCODE) consortium has generated an enormous library of genomic data along with detailed, structured information on all aspects of the experiments. The modMine database (http://intermine.modencode.org) described here has been built by the modENCODE Data Coordination Center to allow the broader research community to (i) search for and download data sets of interest among the thousands generated by modENCODE; (ii) access the data in an integrated form together with non-modENCODE data sets; and (iii) facilitate fine-grained analysis of the above data. The sophisticated search features are possible because of the collection of extensive experimental metadata by the consortium. Interfaces are provided to allow both biologists and bioinformaticians to exploit these rich modENCODE data sets now available via modMine

Identified baryon and meson distributions at large transverse momenta from Au+Au collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}} = 200 GeV

Transverse momentum spectra of $\pi^{\pm}$, $p$ and $\bar{p}$ up to 12 GeV/c at mid-rapidity in centrality selected Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}} = 200$ GeV are presented. In central Au+Au collisions, both $\pi^{\pm}$ and $p(\bar{p})$ show significant suppression with respect to binary scaling at $p_T >$ 4 GeV/c. Protons and anti-protons are less suppressed than $\pi^{\pm}$, in the range 1.5 $< p_{T} <$6 GeV/c. The $\pi^-/\pi^+$ and $\bar{p}/p$ ratios show at most a weak $p_T$ dependence and no significant centrality dependence. The $p/\pi$ ratios in central Au+Au collisions approach the values in p+p and d+Au collisions at $p_T >$ 5 GeV/c. The results at high $p_T$ indicate that the partonic sources of $\pi^{\pm}$, $p$ and $\bar{p}$ have similar energy loss when traversing the nuclear medium.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure